We are excited to share our plans for our upcoming Bitbucket 8.0 platform release for Server and Data Center. As a reminder, a platform release often includes multiple backwards-incompatible changes that lay down the foundation for continued improvement in future releases. Bitbucket 8.0 is focused on responsible scale and providing enterprise customers with the assurance that they can scale strategically, securely, and without performance impacts.
Predicted scope of backwards-incompatible changes in 8.0
As the development of the release is underway, the specifics of the below areas will evolve. This is our best estimate of areas with backwards-incompatible changes at this point in time. Our Early Access Program (EAP) releases will contain the full scope of changes in Bitbucket 8.0, along with supporting documentation with more details and specifics.
Most Java API deprecations have already been made in earlier 7.x releases. There will be a handful more made in Bitbucket 7.21, our final 7.x release. Compiling your app against Bitbucket 7.21 and fixing deprecation warnings will give you a good head-start on required Bitbucket 8.0 changes. You may also want to review Bitbucket’s API changelog.
Bitbucket Mesh and remote Git repositories:
In Bitbucket 8.0, Bitbucket Mesh will bring distributed Git storage to Bitbucket for increased performance and high availability of repositories.
With Bitbucket Mesh, Git repositories may be moved to external nodes. As a result, apps can no longer expect to interact with repositories on-disk. In preparation for these changes, Bitbucket 7.x releases deprecated several Java APIs that disclosed the on-disk location of Git repositories. Bitbucket 8.0 will remove those APIs. Developers should look to the new Worktree API (introduced in Bitbucket 7.14) in order to perform actions that normally required direct access to Git repositories.
End of Windows support:
Microsoft Windows has always been an inferior platform for hosting Bitbucket Server when compared to Linux. Disk I/O and process forking performance is poor on Windows and this impacts Bitbucket’s performance. As a result, we have never supported Data Center licenses or licenses with more than 500 users on Windows.
Bitbucket 8.0 will not support hosting on the Windows operating system. For app developers running Windows, we recommend running Bitbucket from within Windows Subsystem for Linux or in a virtual machine.
Removal of tasks Java API and REST endpoints:
In Bitbucket 7.0, we upgraded tasks so users didn’t need to create a comment first and added support for rich-text formatting. The task Java API and REST endpoints adapted existing task code to use the new method of creating tasks as comments with severity BLOCKER. In Bitbucket 8.0, we will be removing the task Java APIs and REST endpoints. Apps that upgrade to use the new method of creating tasks will be compatible with Bitbucket 7.x and 8.x.
Upgrade of diff views:
Bitbucket 7.0 upgraded the pull request diff view, but commit diffs, branch compares, and the Create Pull Request screen continued to use the old diff view. Bitbucket 8.0 moves all diff views to the new format for a faster, more consistent experience. As a result, frontend plugin points on these pages will need to change, similar to what was required for the original pull request update. More detail will be forthcoming when an EAP is released.
Supported platform updates:
Though most app developers shouldn’t be impacted, databases marked “
Deprecated” on the Bitbucket Supported Platforms page will no longer be supported in Bitbucket 8.0.
The minimum supported version of Git running on the server will be raised to 2.30 (though, users may continue to use older versions of Git).
There are no changes to our supported JREs. Bitbucket 8.0 will continue to run on both Java 8 and Java 11 JREs. Support for Java 17 JREs will not be added with Bitbucket 8.0.
Test with Early Access Program (EAP) releases
Early Access Program releases are designed to provide vendors visibility and an opportunity to develop against the changes of the upcoming platform release. Between now and the Bitbucket 8.0 release, we plan to have an EAP release containing the above changes, bug fixes, and improvements. We plan to release the first EAP in late-February 2022.
With the introduction of the first EAP for Bitbucket 8.0, we will also create a developer community discussion topic under the Bitbucket Server Announcements category to address the changes introduced with 8.0. Members of the Bitbucket Product Management and Engineering team will be available to help answer any questions. To give you enough time to schedule changes to your app before the official Bitbucket 8.0 release, we’ll communicate ahead of the next EAP release and do our best to include most of the planned backwards-incompatible changes.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
We know that a platform release can provide many unknowns. Here are some questions that we wanted to address with the information we currently have.
When will Bitbucket 8.0 arrive?
As mentioned above, we cannot provide an exact date, but our current target to release Bitbucket 8.0 is late-March or early-April 2022.
Will there be backwards-incompatible changes to Bitbucket’s APIs?
Yes. We are still working on the full scope of backwards-incompatible changes to both the REST API, Java API, and frontend plugin points but most of the affected APIs have already been marked as deprecated in earlier Bitbucket 7.x releases.
Are there any restrictions on who has access to the EAP builds of Bitbucket 8.0?
No, there will not be any restrictions. The EAP is open to everyone.
Will there be additional resources to help us prepare?
Yes! In coordination with the EAP programs, we will provide more detail about the changes and technical scope of Bitbucket 8.0. We will also have technical documentation to provide detail on how to adopt the changes to Bitbucket. We’ll be publishing all the documentation on the EAP page.
Best,
The Bitbucket team